Welcome readers of the New York Times, New York Post and National Post — Free-Range Kids is happy to see you! Here are the articles you may have seen in your papers: The New York Times: Why Can’t She Walk to School?. The New York Post: Childhood Stalled (about moms dragging big boys into the little girls room). And the National Post Q & A with me. Why all the press? Because Free-Range Kids is a movement whose time has come. We are a growing group of people who believe that when kids are allowed — expected! — to…
Author: lskenazy
Readers — This one is so utterly insane I’ve been saving it all week as just the thing to shake us up all weekend. (Why we should spend all weekend shook up by the insanity of pop culture, I don’t know. But somehow, it just feels right.) Anyway, here it is, from Times Online in England: Penknives may have formed as much part of the scouting experience as badges and campfires, but according to advice from the Scout Association they must no longer be brought on camping trips, except when there is a “specific” need. The reason is a growing…
To me — everything. Here it is. It’s about a 12-year-old, new to the neighborhood on his first day of school, who missed the bus home. He and his friend started walking, apparently got lost (the reference to Fred Myer is a local grocery), and pretty soon the entire town — police, Boys & Girls Club, everyone — was on high alert for the missing boys. I love the idea of community invovlement, but I’ve got all these questions, starting with: The kid had a cell phone. Why didn’t he call? If it was a new phone and he was…
Hi Readers — Here’s a nice bit of advice from the daddy behind The Diaper Chronicles, Barack Levin. First, his biography, then his tips! I was born in 1970 in Tel Aviv, Israel and moved to Pittsburgh in 1996 to pursue my master’s degree. Shortly after my arrival I met a beautiful French woman named Michelle and fell in love. A year later, during a routine physical, I learned I had an irreversible and life-threatening kidney disease. I was 26 years old, and the doctor doubted that I’d see 30. In the face of this news, I refused to give…
Hi Readers — It’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind (and a man’s, too), and this article from The Boston Globe has me re-thinking my knee-jerk reaction against any attempt to organize and regulate recess. The article points out that in many schools, kids have almost forgotten HOW to play. Sending in a coach to get kids jumping rope or playing kickball is a sorry thing to need — you wish kids just did this spontaneously. But when they don’t, sending in someone to teach the basics of fun is sounding good to me. Naturally, I don’t…
Folks — it doesn’t get any creepier than this: A dad in Britain takes pix of his adorable sons on an inflatable slide and finds himself accused of all manner of disbusting stuff. Can we say it again? We are in the midst of a Pedophile Panic! When Gary Crutchley started taking pictures of his children playing on an inflatable slide he thought they would be happy reminders of a family day out. But the innocent snaps of seven-year-old Cory, and Miles, five, led to him being called a ‘pervert’. The woman running the slide at Wolverhampton Show asked him…
Hi Readers — Get ready to start gnashing. A bill in Massachusetts would require all schools there to “professionally” sterlize their band isntruments, according to this article in the Wicked Local Sumerville (great name!). And guess what? Only one company in Massachusetts does this. The owner of that company, a dentist, insists that without this pricey sterilization — $20-$30 per instrument and done twice a year — children’s health is at risk. But an epidemilogist at the Mass. Department of Public Health, Alfred DiMaria, points out in the article that: …there has never been a documented outbreak of illness…
…and have even taken some heat for it. Alternatively, she’s also looking — though it may be hard to find them here — for parents who drive their kids the mere block or two. Or pick them up from the bus stop just down the street. Or…you know. Helicopter them to and from school. Also: Does anyone’s Parent-Teacher Association auction off the prime drop-off space in front of the door? She’d like someone to talk to her about that, too. And she’s on a tight deadline so drop a line…soon! I will foward her your email addresses. Thanks! — Lenore
Hi Readers! Remember during the summer I ran a post by businessman Rick Woldenberg about the wacky new Consumer Product Safety law? Here’s a little of what he said: Readers of Free-Range Kids may not be surprised to learn that Congress has enacted far-reaching legislation to save your children from the dangers involved in reading an old book, riding a new bike or even using a Barbie pen. That is, if after using these items, they generally eat them. Feel safer already? The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act became law on August 14, 2008 and it dramatically changes…
Hi Readers — Today’s New York Times has a really great piece about a town in New Jersey whose sand-bottomed, spring-water filled swimming hole has been the joy of local kids since 1929. Until, of course, today. Now half the residents want to fill the pond in and replace it with a standard concrete pool, making it easier to watch their children. The other half say this is helicopter parenting taken to extremes. The pro-pool people cite the death of a 14-year-old last year — the third drowning in 80 years — as proof that the swmming hole is unsafe.…